Speaker: Maude Cathers
Date of birth/age at time of recording: 1904/66
Occasion: an interview by New Hope-Solebury Elementary School children
Speech date: 1981, estimated
Speech location: New Hope-Solebury Elementary School classroom
Speech length: 57 minutes (last 4 minutes corrupted by student noise)
Time span discussed: 1909 to 1969
Summary: Maude initially attended Greenhill and Solebury one-room school houses from 1909 to 1918. She taught at the Carversville School from 1922 to 1938 and then at Solebury from 1939 to 1954, when she became principal of Solebury Elementary School. She retired in 1969. After her retirement, Maude gave a talk for the students of the elementary school. In it she gave a comprehensive look into schooling during this first half of the 20th century. The students’ questions elicited many anecdotes and insights of school and community life. In addition, a brief reading from Mary Paxton’s Diary of 1880/81 illustrates the life of a young girl and her family at that time.
Time markers:
00:20 – 1909 Lumberville, Greenhill one-room schoolhouse
01:20 – school equipment, heating, etc.
01:55 – outhouses at schools
02:30 – water bucket chore, frogs in bucket
03:15 – Crook’s farm, Christmas trees
03:30 – walking to school, non-existent school holidays..
06:00 – stove in school with jacket, double desks, 10 desks at Solebury
07:00 – county examination at end of 8th year in school
08:00 – corporal punishment
08:30 – Mary Paxton’s 1880 diary on butcher paper
14:30 – names of several other teachers
15:00 – 1922 Carversville School, 18 years old and career dates
17:15 – Westchester Teacher’s School
18:30 – punishments
21:30 – playground games, crack the whip, marbles
23:45 – sledding
25:00 – teacher’s salary
30:00 – lunch baskets for girls, pails for boys, punishments
33:30 – spelling bees
34:50 – art, special lessons
35:20 – no extra vacation days; school year ends in May for farming duties
36:00 – clothes
37:00 – list of other one-room schools in Solebury
38:30 – assigned seat system, ink wells
47:00 – books used from many years past, ink wells
52:20 – diseases and students quarantined
53:30 – student noise as young class looks at photos and books that Maude brought
Transcription of Maude Cathers interview 1.
Maude Cathers interview 2
